The Quest of the Silver Fleece eBook

Now that the web was weaving its last mesh in early
January he haunted Montgomery, and on this day when
it seemed that things must culminate or he would go
mad, he hastened again down to the Planters’
Hotel and was quickly ushered to John Taylor’s
room. The place was filled with tobacco smoke.
An electric ticker was drumming away in one corner,
a telephone ringing on the desk, and messenger boys
hovered outside the door and raced to and fro.

“Well,” asked Cresswell, maintaining his
composure by an effort, “how are things?”

“Great!” returned Taylor. “League
holds three million bales and controls five.
It’s the biggest corner in years.”

“But how’s cotton?”

“Ticker says six and three-fourths.”

Cresswell sat down abruptly opposite Taylor, looking
at him fixedly.

“That last drop means liabilities of a hundred
thousand to us,” he said slowly.

“Exactly,” Taylor blandly admitted.

Beads of sweat gathered on Cresswell’s forehead.
He looked at the scrawny iron man opposite, who had
already forgotten his presence. He ordered whiskey,
and taking paper and pencil began to figure, drinking
as he figured. Slowly the blood crept out of his
white face leaving it whiter, and went surging and
pounding in his heart. Poverty—­that
was what those figures spelled. Poverty—­unclothed,
wineless poverty, to dig and toil like a “nigger”
from morning until night, and to give up horses and
carriages and women; that was what they spelled.

Cresswell arose from his chair by the window and came
slowly to the wide flat desk where Taylor was working
feverishly. He sat down heavily in the chair
opposite and tried quietly to regain his self-control.
The liabilities of the Cresswells already amounted
to half the value of their property, at a fair market
valuation. The cotton for which they had made
debts was still falling in value. Every fourth
of a cent fall meant—­he figured it again
tremblingly—­meant one hundred thousand more
of liabilities. If cotton fell to six he hadn’t
a cent on earth. If it stayed there—­“My
God!” He felt a faintness stealing over him but
he beat it back and gulped down another glass of fiery
liquor.

Then the one protecting instinct of his clan gripped
him. Slowly, quietly his hand moved back until
it grasped the hilt of the big Colt’s revolver
that was ever with him—­his thin white hand
became suddenly steady as it slipped the weapon beneath
the shadow of the desk.